Well, if you have not heard of the word Telomeres, I will explain it here, since it is likely that you will be hearing about it more and more. Especially, if you are interested in optimal health, living long and living health.

So, first here are some useful terms.

What is Telomere?

Telomeres are disposable buffers at the ends of chromosomes which are truncated during cell division. Their presence protects the genes before them on the chromosome from being truncated. During the process of each cell division, the telomere ends become shorter.

Hayflick Limit

An American scientist Leonard Hayflick established limits to cell replication what is now called Haflick Limit. The Hayflick limit is the number of times a normal human cell population will divide until cell division stops. Empirical evidence shows that the telomeres associated with each cell’s DNA will get slightly shorter with each new cell division until they shorten to a critical length.

Most cells will divide between 50 to 70 times before they cannot divide any more.

Role of Telomeres in Cellular Aging

As Hayflick first demonstrated, human cells have an inborn “counting mechanism” that tells them when to senesce, or stop dividing: Each time a cell replicates, the ends of each chromosome, i.e., telomeres, get shorter, and once the telomeres get too short, they trigger a “senescence program” that arrests the cell’s growth.

Telomerase is an enzyme that adds length back to the end of telomeres. In a simple leap of logic, you can quickly figure that telomerase enzyme is an antidote to shortening of the telomeres.

As you can also guess things are probably not that simple. They never are when it comes to human biology. But for this brief blog post, I will keep it simple.

So, with this premise of telomeres determining when cells say “uncle”. And, Telomerase offering an antidote, race is on for researchers and entrepreneurs on many fronts. Numerous questions are being asked and some have even been answered:

How do you measure telomeres inexpensively?

Do telomeres really correlate with one’s biological age?

Does telomere length account for life styles that have been known to determine one’s health span and lifespan?

What factors stimulate telomerase activity? Can we measure that?

What about the role of telomerase in cancer, where cell replication goes on without any limit?

And, so on and so on..

Some hard answers have emerged, well-rooted in hard science. On the other hand, other answers are preliminary and people are making wild leaps of logic to get to the market first with commercial products and services.

Measuring Telomeres

Several companies now offer services to measure telomeres. For example, Titanovo, Inc., SpectraCell Laboratories, Telome Health, Inc., Telome Home. Basically, you send them blood or swab and they will send you your telomere measurements.

Myexperience

I recently got my telomeres measured by Titanovo, Inc.

I signed up online. They sent me a kit. I swabbed inside of my cheeks and mailed it back. I also filled in a lifestyle survey on their website they use to correlate the results with lifestyle.

Few weeks later, they posted my results on their website. The following pictures represent result I received. (You can click on these to enlarge and make them readable)

What do my results mean?

Here is my take away. My relative telomere length is 0.62, which if you interpolate on one of the charts that means my telomere corresponds to a 48 year old male. 13 year younger biologically sound pretty good to me!

I reported my diet as vegetarian. If I were to change my diet to vegan, according to the last chart, my telomere length could be 0.67. That represents an additional opportunity for 8% advantage in terms of biological age. 8% increase in lifestyle is pretty significant to me.

Since I just started experimenting with a vegan diet about 3 week ago, I will be interested in retesting the telomere length in a year to see if the results correspond to what Titanovo is forecasting.

Titanovo sells bundles of multiple kits, so people can play with their lifestyles choices and then see the impact, in say 3 months at a time.

Bottom Line

This area of telomere and measuring impact of lifestyle choices through measuring telomere is quite exciting.

A lot of research is going on in both gaining fundamental understanding as well designing interventions that could potentially defeat body’s lifespan clock.

After so many years, my wife and I finally surrendered to the suggestions of our trainer and started getting massages at least once a month. He had been telling us how massage can be great for recovering from the stresses left over from hard workouts. And, about six months ago, we decided to give it a shot and get massages on a regular basis.

So, I thought I will take some time to do some research into the role of massage therapy and share the research and our own experience in this blog post.

What Is Massage Therapy?

Massage therapy dates back thousands of years. References to massage appear in ancient writings from China, Japan, India, and Egypt.

Deep (tissue)massage technique uses slower, more-forceful strokes to target the deeper layers of muscle and connective tissue, commonly to help with muscle damage from injuries.

Sports massage combines techniques of Swedish massage and deep tissue massage to release chronic muscle tension. It is adapted to the needs of athletes.

Myofascial trigger point therapy focuses on trigger points—areas that are painful when pressed and are associated with pain elsewhere in the body. Examples of these are:

Accupressure – where therapist applies strong physical pressure on specific point on the body.

Reflexology – Similar to acupressure where pressure is applied to certain points on hands and feet.

But there are other massages that are not quite as common and are based on Indian medicine, Ayuerveda:

Marma-point Massage – where a therapist applies very gentle touch to some or all of the 107 different marma-points in the body to correct any imbalances in the body

Shirodhara – where warm oil is poured to the forehead

Abhyanga – oil massage is done by two people with synchronized movements

Massage therapy is sometimes done using essential oils as a form of aromatherapy.

Benefits of Massage

A lot of the scientific research on massage therapy is preliminary or conflicting, but much of the evidence points toward beneficial effects on pain and other symptoms associated with a number of different conditions. Much of the evidence suggests that these effects are short term and that people need to keep getting massages for the benefits to continue.

While more research is needed to confirm the benefits of massage, some studies have found massage may also be helpful for:

Anxiety

Digestive disorders

Fibromyalgia

Headaches

Insomnia related to stress

Myofascial pain syndrome

Soft tissue strains or injuries

Sports injuries

Temporomandibular joint pain

According to Arthritis Foundation regular massage of muscles and joints, whether by a licensed therapist at a spa or by self-massage at home, can lead to a significant reduction in pain for people with arthritis, according to Tiffany Field, PhD, director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami School of Medicine, who’s conducted a number of studies on the benefits of massage, including on people with arthritis. In Field’s research and other recent studies on the effects of massage for arthritis symptoms, regular use of the simple therapy led to improvements in pain, stiffness, range of motion, hand grip strength and overall function of the joints.

In a study published in Science Translational Medicine by Dr. Mark A. Tarnoplsky et al found that a short, 10-minute Swedish-style massage session can reduce inflammation, which can help your muscles recover after a hard workout.

And, then of course, there are studies that attribute the benefits of massage just to receiving a dose of human touch that offers all sorts of healthy responses from lowering blood pressures, depression, improving immunity to oxytocin release for increased bonding response.

What are the risks of Massage Therapy?

Massage therapy appears to have few risks when performed by a trained practitioner. However, massage therapists should take some precautions in people with certain health conditions. NCCIH recommend that:

In some cases, pregnant women should avoid massage therapy. Talk with your health care provider before getting a massage if you are pregnant.

People with some conditions such as bleeding disorders or low blood platelet counts should avoid having forceful and deep tissue massage. People who take anticoagulants (also known as blood thinners) also should avoid them. Massage should not be done in any potentially weak area of the skin, such as wounds.

Deep or intense pressure should not be used over an area where the patient has a tumor or cancer, unless approved by the patient’s health care provider.

Our Experience

Over the years, my wife and I have received massages during vacations etc. We received several different Ayurvedic massages at the Ayurrvedic Institute in Albuquerque NM every day for a week of an intense detox and cleanse program called Panchakarma. I have also received locally in Maryland Marma-Point massages. And, now for the last six month, we are receiving massages once a month.

I described my experience of relieving migraine using acupressure in another blog post.

Massages that we receive from the same person every month are very therapeutic in that the therapist is getting to know our body. She is able to adjust her technique based on what our body needs. I am able to tell her any specific issue I may have. Usually these tend to be some stiff muscles that she could pay attention to. During and after the massage, she is the one who tells me where the stiff muscles are.

Areas around my shoulders and neck are where I seem to burry my stresses and are getting more and more limber as a result of the massages. I can definitely feel the result of my relaxed muscles in my yoga practice.

I have found Ayuervedic massages to be totally blissful. It blows me away how such gentle touches at the Marma-points or pouring of oil on third-eye can totally transport my body into a meditative state.

We have all heard about the benefits of strength training or weight training:

It helps keep the fat weight lost off for good

It protects bone health and helps build muscle mass

It makes you stronger and fitter

It helps build better body mechanics improving balance

It plays a key role in disease prevention, e. g. improving insulin sensitivity and HDL cholesterol

It boost your energy level and your mood

It improves your metabolism so your burn more calories even when not working out

With so many benefits, it seems no brainer that strength training must be part of life style of anyone pursuing Optimal Health.

If you search on Amazon.com, you will find hundreds of books on strength and weight training. These books elaborate on the benefits and various techniques of strength training. Here are two that use scientific basis in their approach.

Is there any downside to the strength training? What could possibly go wrong?

If you do a quick Google search on this topic, you will find that Injuries is what most people caution about as the downside of weight training.

That makes sense. Major types of injuries during weight training are hairline fractures, pulled muscles and damaged joints. The causes of these injuries often are:

Using Impropriate weights

Not using proper form

Carelessness

Accidents

Making sure that you take precautions to avoid such injuries is very important. Even when you are very careful and conscientious, avoiding wrong form while strength training can require a lot of vigilance. That’s where it is important to learn from a trainer the basics of using weight, machines and even your weight.

However, in my experience, there is something even more subtle and insidious that can potentially creep in and that is easily preventable, if you are vigilant. And, no one seems to talk about this topic.

So, let me tell you my story to illustrate what this insidious issue is and lessons I learned on how to prevent it.

MY STORY

Many years ago, I used to do a simple yoga routine few days a week. I found that over time, my body became quite flexible. I felt energetic. I did have spring in my feet. However, I found that my strength was continuing to decline. I was even surprised how few pushups I could do at a time. Abdominal fat around my belly was slowly getting worse. I was becoming what we now call “skinny fat”.

So, I figured, instead of yoga, I would switch to exercise routine that involved working with light weights and body weight. As I started this new strength training routine, I found that I was getting stronger every week. I could do more and more pushups at a time. After several months, I even achieved my stretch goal of doing one hundred pushups in a single rep!

Then after about a year, I went back and tried my yoga routine. I immediately discovered that my flexibility had significantly decreased. I was quite discouraged that within a year while I had made so much progress in my strength, I had lost the flexibility and even some balance.

At that point in time, I ran into my trainer Saleem, who I still work out with over 13 years later. I told him my dilemma and he showed me how to stretch my muscle after EACH weight training exercise. So, if I had just done curls, I would stretch my biceps. If I had done squats and I would stretch my quads and so on. Doing these stretches routinely as part of my workouts, I noticed that it helped me retain flexibility in muscles while building strength. Training with him, I would also start my workout always with proper warmups and finish the workout with some cool down stretches.

Then Saleem started to add stretch workout days in between strength training workout days. So, after 4 or 5 sessions of weight training, he might add a stretch workout day. On the Stretch Workout day, we would simply do all stretching exercises – stretching back, hamstrings, quads, front, all big muscles and small muscles. With this new regimen I noticed that I was retaining my flexibility as I was developing strength.

In spite of all these precautions, about four years ago, I hurt my right shoulder from the workouts. I was able to fix most of it by doing the various stretches etc. However, as I would lift my right arm, I would feel resistance and even pain in my shoulder- may be at a level of 1 to 3 on a scale of 10. That led me to start doing Bikram Yoga, about 3 ½ years ago. As the shoulder got more and more limber with Bikram Yoga, resistance or pain at a level of 1 out of 10 still remained. And this resistance/pain would get worse, whenever I did bench presses or some other exercises that put strain on my shoulder.

At that point, I really got curious. I wanted to figure out what exactly would it take for my shoulder to be 100% recovered and normal.

I found various methods of making my shoulders further limber. Using foam rollers, such as below, was a big help.

Then I found massage balls (lacrosse balls), shown below. With these massage balls, I would find muscles around neck and shoulders that were tight and then use the ball to relieve pressure and loosen those tight muscles.

Finally, I decided to engage a massage therapist to work those muscles. And, she immediately found tight muscles and worked on those to loosen them up. And, finally, my right shoulder got to a point of 100% recovered and normal.

MORAL OF MY STORY

So, what is the moral of this story? Here is the insidious process that I discovered:

“How old are you?” someone asks. Number of years since birth is the generally the answer – that is your Chronological Ageor CA.

But how hold do you feel? How old do you act? How old do you look? That is your Biological Age or BA.

Wouldn’t it be nice to actually be able to measure your biological age?

CA and BA is the difference between being 40 year old and going on 60. Or, may be being 60 year old and going on 40.

Wouldn’t it be more useful to have a single number like BA, than understanding individual factors like your total cholesterol, HDL, A1c, VO2 Max, etc?

Recently, in the media there has been a buzz about a recent research published by scientists led by Duke University School of Medicine about measuring biological age. For example, see the article in WSJ: How Quickly Are You Growing Old?

Now there are a quite a few websites, where you answer a bunch of question and they will tell you, your biological age as compared to your chronological age.

For example, here are three such sites, I tried (my CA is 60.9 years):

Each of the sites followed up with advice and helpful hints on what I could start or stop doing to further increase my expected health and lifespan.

Unfortunately, none of these websites show exactly what they do with the information you provide and how they arrive at the number they call Biological Age.

But this recent study, “Quantification of biological aging in young adults”, by Daniel W. Belsky et al,is very rigorous treatment of this subject and gives you all the details behind the curtain. And, for me, these details are not only fascinating but actually quite useful to understand what matters for biological age to start diverging from chronological age. In other words, what slows down or speed up aging.

The study calculated the aging rate of 954 men and women—taking various measurements of their bodies’ health—when they were each 26, 32 and 38 in chronological years. By analyzing how these measures changed over time, the researchers were able to see who aged faster and who slower than normal.

To measure the pace of biological aging, which the study defined as the declining integrity of multiple organ systems, the researchers relied on 18 separate biomarkers, summarized in figure below.

These ranged from common measures such as HDL-cholesterol levels and mean arterial blood pressure to more obscure ones like the length of telomeres—the protective caps on the ends of chromosomes that shorten with age.

Chronological age of all participants was 38 years. However, researchers found that the biological ages varied from 26 years to 60 years.

For measuring how fast people aged, they calculated aging over 12 years. About 30 percent aged biologically one year for every calendar year. There were those who aged as much as 3 years for every calendar year. And, there were four members of the group who aged not at all or actually got biologically younger during the 12 year period.

BOTTOMLINE:

Finding one’s Biological Age is a fascinating concept and can be very useful in optimizing health and life span. However, this is not an exact science just yet, although good strides are being made in research.

However, if you want to focus on living optimally, you can focus on changing your lifestyle to optimize the basic 18 or so biomarkers used in this study. Most of these can be impacted by lifestyle choices. Only 20% depend upon genetics.

A couple of weeks ago my wife and I took a vacation in the Exuma Islands in the Bahamas to celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. Now everyone knows what Bahamas Islands have plenty of: Water and the Sun. Lounging on the beach and swimming in the ocean with all shades of turquoise, we definitely got plenty of both water and the Sun. Case in point, this picture of me!

And, that got me thinking: So, how much Sun exposure one should have for optimal health?

On the positive side, we know that being in the Sun is very therapeutic. It cheers us up. Both because it is good for our disposition and it is a major source of Vitamin D.

On the other hand, we have all heard of skin cancer, eye damage and hypersensitivity that excessive exposure to sun can cause.

So, how do we balance the two for Optimal Health?

First, how much Sun do we need for daily dose of Vitamin D?

Most of the “experts” sort of punt this question saying that there isn’t one recommendation for everyone. This is because the amount of time you need to spend in the sun for your skin to make enough vitamin D depends on a number of factors. These include your skin type (how dark your skin is or how easily you get sunburnt), the time of year and what time of day it is.

In the Northern Hemisphere, (e.g., US, Canada) short daily periods of sun exposure without sunscreen during the summer months (April to October) are enough for most people to make enough vitamin D. Evidence suggests that the most effective time of day for vitamin D production is between 11am and 3pm.

A short period of time in the sun means just a few minutes – evidence suggests that about 10 to 15 minutes is enough for most lighter-skinned people – and is less than the time it takes you to start going red or burn.

The larger the area of skin that is exposed to sunlight, the more chance there is of making enough vitamin D before you start to burn. People with darker skin will need to spend longer in the sun to produce the same amount of vitamin D.

In the Northern Hemisphere, our skin isn’t able to make vitamin D from winter sunlight (November to March) as the sunlight hasn’t got enough UVB (ultraviolet B) radiation. During the winter, we get vitamin D from our body’s stores and from food sources. Hence great emphasis on Vitamin D supplements in the US and other countries in the Northern Hemisphere located at higher latitudes.

How much sun before you do damage to the Skin?

Now on to how much sun is needed to produce sun damage to the skin. Here also the clear answer is: It depends.

In research, often the measurement of damage used is the amount of UV radiation needed to cause erythema – the red flushing of the skin caused by exposure to sunlight. The theory is that more the erythema, the greater is the likelihood of damage and cancer.

Because of the variables of geography and seasons, and variations in how an individual reacts to sunlight, it isn’t possible to come up with hard and fast rules – but here are some useful guidelines.

Avoid the midday sun

The time when the skin makes most Vitamin D is when it’s exposed to the midday summer sun – but that’s the time the skin is most easily damaged.

However, redness can occur in only eight minutes in a mid-day sun.

So in peak summer times from 10 am to 3pm, you should use protection against the sun; shade, hats, clothing, sunglasses and sunscreen.

But earlier in the day and later in the afternoon, for a similar period of sun exposure and vitamin D manufacture, you get much less skin damage.

During the summer months in the Southern states in the US, for example, 10 to 15 minutes of unprotected sun exposure of the face, arms and hands before 10am or after 3pm, three to four times a week, will give you enough Vitamin D without skin damage.

But this may not be enough in Northern part of the US or Canada, especially in winter. You’ll need longer periods of exposure or more flesh exposed to the sun.

Longer for dark skins

Note that the figures only apply to fair skinned people. People with very dark skin need around six times more exposure to UV radiation to produce as much vitamin D as someone with fair skin. These people may need sunlight exposure during peak times – i.e. the middle of the day – especially in the Northern states in the winter months.

On the other hand people with darker skins are less likely to get skin damage because of greater amounts of pigment in their skin. Even though they are still susceptible to getting skin cancer.

Bottom Line

Based on what I just learned, for Optimal Health, I am going to stick to my Vitamin D supplements to get sufficient Vitamin D, year-round and heed to the following recommendation I found on the Skin Cancer Foundation website:

Q: I’m going to the Caribbean this winter. Are there any special precautions I need to take to protect myself from the sun?

A: (By Neil Sadick, MD, FAAD, FAACS, FACP, FACPh) When the days get colder and the nights get longer many people enjoy a vacation to a warm place like the Caribbean, to catch some sun and “recharge their batteries.” Typical winter vacation regions are located close to the equator, with little distinction between the seasons and high temperatures year-round. The sunny weather in these regions is accompanied by strong ultraviolet (UV) radiation, as the sun’s rays hit the earth at a more direct angle and aren’t as well-absorbed by the atmosphere.

Furthermore, these sunny days tend to be long, sometimes with substantial amounts of UV until early evening. The ability to travel from a winter season to a sunny vacation spot in just a few hours is a great comfort in modern times, but also a heavy burden for the skin. Current studies now show that sun-filled vacations and sunburns play a key role in the development of melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer.

Intermittent, intense sun exposure, the kind you are likely to receive on a sun-drenched winter vacation (the sort that often leads to sunburn), is associated with a much higher melanoma risk than regular, everyday sun exposure. Suffering one or more blistering sunburns in childhood or adolescence, or five or more by any age, more than doubles a person’s lifetime chances of developing melanoma. Important precautions that protect you from the sun on your vacation include shade, sun-protective clothing, and sunscreen, as well as sensibly limiting your sun exposure in general.

The sunscreen you use should have a sun protection factor of at least 30 and sufficiently block UVA as well as UVB rays. (Look for “broad spectrum” or “multi-spectrum” protection.) If you’ll be vacationing near the water, a water-resistant or very water-resistant sunscreen formula is recommended. Apply approximately one ounce of sunscreen (two tablespoons) to the whole body, and reapply every two hours or immediately after activities such as swimming, sweating, or rubbing/wiping.

Loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirts and long pants made from tightly woven fabrics offer the best protection from the sun’s UV rays. You may want to look for clothes that have a UPF (ultraviolet protection factor) label of 30+; a shirt with a UPF of 30, for example, will let just 1/30th of the sun’s UV radiation reach your skin. High-UPF athletic gear may be particularly helpful, since such clothes are meant to keep you cool and comfortable, no matter how hot the weather gets.

Finally, a hat with a brim at least 3” all the way around and UV-blocking sunglasses will also help protect the vulnerable skin on your head, face, neck, and tops of the shoulders. Sensible sun behavior means avoiding tanning and burning as well as seeking the shade between 10 AM and 4 PM (and especially between noon and 2 PM, when the sun’s rays are strongest).

Two weeks ago, I took a vacation to go skiing with my son Justin in Colorado. We skied (actually I ski, Justin snow boards) in Breckenridge, Keystone and Vail. On the first day snow conditions were okay for Colorado. But during the next two days, it snowed and with the fresh snow the conditions were great.

Every once in a while, I would stop in the middle of my skiing to check up on my body, admire the mountains and the vistas all around me, to express my gratitude, or to be simply mindful of the phenomenal opportunity I had to be there.

I was very happy with my body. It was providing me all the energy, endurance, strength, balance, quickness and flexibility that I needed to be able to enjoy the slopes. And, on top of that I was able to push myself just to improve my skills by attempting some challenging expert trails.

I did take a few spills too. With the flexibility and quick reflexes that my body afforded me, the spills were uneventful.

Throughout our time on the slopes, Justin kept saying, “Come on dad, lets do what we came here to do.” And, that led me to the following thought.

Justin Snowboarding

Me Skiing

In the previous posts on this blog, I have talked about how Bio Markers are used to define Optimal Health. Reflecting upon the ski experience, I thought a good “clinical” way of defining Optimal Health beyond the Bio Markers was simply “having the ability to do what one wants to do”.

On a typical day, it could simply be the energy you need from when you wake up in the morning until the end of the day. Or, as I often like to say, “Optimal Health is to run out of the day before you run out of energy”.

But through the ski vacation, it is clear that what we need is more than the energy. Isn’t it?

So, for Optimal Health, in addition to Energy, we also need:

Endurance – to be able to go the distance, when we need it. Not all days are equal.

Strength – to conduct whatever our work or play requires

Flexibility – some say that flexibility is the real power or strength

Balance – the stories abound over the last two weeks of slips and slides on the ice and snow

QuickReflexes – we require quick reaction times to adapt to the circumstance

So, Optimal Health for me is not only all bodily systems working well without any fuss or muss, but also having sufficient Energy, Strength, Endurance, Flexibility, Balance and Quick Reflexes that matches your lifestyle.

How do you define Optimal Health?

I would love to hear from you.

Please feel free to leave your comments or questions to this post, so others can participate, share and learn.

Stress has become such a common buzz word. We all talk about it. We generally know it is bad for us. It is constantly in the news.

There are exceptions though. Some believe that stress is good, arguing that if you take away the stress you take away the motivation and drive.

But whenever I get into conversation with someone and start to dig a little deeper with questions like, “So, what do you think is stress?” “Why do you think that stress is bad?” Why do you think it is good?” Or, “How do you deal with stress?” The subject becomes very squishy, very quickly.

Even Hans Selye, the person who originally coined the term stress in 1936 in the context of health and spent life-time studying it, at one time threw up his hands and declared, “Everyone knows what stress is, but no one really knows.”

So, let us take the first question first, what is stress, any ways.

Webster’s Dictionary defines Stress as “a state of mental or worry caused by problems in your life, work, etc.”; or, “something that causes strong feelings of worry or anxiety”

According to the American Institute of Stress, another popular definition of stress is, “a condition or feeling experienced when a person perceives that demands exceed the personal and social resources the individual is able to mobilize.”

Few useful concepts, while talking about stress are:

Acute Stress:Fight or flight. The body prepares to defend itself. It takes about 90 minutes for the metabolism to return to normal when the response is over.

Chronic Stress: The cost of daily living: bills, kids, jobs…This is the stress we tend to ignore or push down. Left uncontrolled this stress affects our health- our body and our immune system. This is the type of stress that causes wear and tear on our bodies and can impact health and longevity.

So, from the point of view of theses definitions, the stress is really a subjective concept, based on how we perceive a thing or an event. The same event or activity, say a roller coaster ride, could be a eustress (good stress) for one person and distress for another. This is why psychologists or mental health practitioners often get involved in diagnosing and helping cope with chronic stress.

Although stress is a subjective concept, the impact on our bodies is often very objective and real. We have all experienced the rising of hairs on the back of the neck, the sweats, tension in our gut, racing of heart, dilating of pupils, and pumping of blood in our face, arms and legs.

Physiological effects of most acute stress events subside about 90 minutes after the conclusion of the stress event. Body returns to normal homeostasis or biological equilibrium.

However, it is the repeated acute stress events or chronic stress that are real cause for concern and take toll on our bodies. The results of such chronic stress can be objectively measured from a host ofbiomarkers that include (from Biomarkers of Chronic Stress, by Laalithya Konduru):

Most of us recognize some of these biomarkers. Others are quite esoteric. In any case, from this list, it does not take a neuroscientist to figure out that chronic stress can mess with a number of things that are key to our health: insulin, cholesterol, hormones, our immune system, can cause inflammation, reduce energy level in the body and impact working of our brain.

Looks like a real important subject to me, if we want to live healthy life free of chronic diseases for an optimal life span.

What do you think? How do you fee about stress?

In a future post, I would like to explore some anti-dotes to chronic stress

In my previous blog posts, I have talked about curing my allergies, fixing migraines, and curing a whole host of other issues without pharmacological medicines. Yes, actually curing these issues and not just managing or controlling the symptoms.

For the longest amount of time, I found it difficult to talk about to these things with my physicians or even lay people. I must admit it all sounded so much like woo doo even to me as I would talk about it. A common refrain from doctors was, “We only practice evidence based medicine.” I did not know what to believe or not believe, except that from my personal experience (evidence of n=1), I could prove that these things work.

All that changed, when last year Kimberly and I attended the Health and Wellness Conference 2013 at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine at the Center of Integrative Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. There we heard talks about yoga, Qi Gong, nutrition, meditation, detoxing, and many other so called “alternative” therapies in the setting of Evidence Based Medicine.

Key note speaker was Mark Hyman, MD. He has a private practice Ultra Wellness Center in Massachusetts. He wrote a book, The Blood Sugar Solution, which received endorsement from President Bill Clinton. He talked about the diagnosis and cure of Diabesity, a term he has coined as combination of diabetes and obesity. And, he talked about diabesity in the context of what he called Functional Medicine.

Since then I have studied up quite a bit on Functional Medicine and I do believe that many of my conversations in my blog posts fit in that framework. More I dig into this topic the more entranced I am getting with this topic. I feel that functional medicine is the key to the kingdom, when it comes to wellness, vitality and living the optimal health span and life span.

“Functional medicine addresses the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach and engaging both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership. It is an evolution in the practice of medicine that better addresses the healthcare needs of the 21st century. By shifting the traditional disease-centered focus of medical practice to a more patient-centered approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, not just an isolated set of symptoms. Functional medicine practitioners spend time with their patients, listening to their histories and looking at the interactions among genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors that can influence long-term health and complex, chronic disease. In this way, functional medicine supports the unique expression of health and vitality for each individual.”

So, the basic idea of functional medicine is to take a systems approach to disease and wellness rather than either chasing symptoms or taking germ theory approach that generally focuses on single point of correction. In his book, Jeffrey Bland talks of seven different systems for our bodies:

Assimilation and Elimination

Detoxification

Defense

Cellular Communication

Cellular Transport

Energy

Structure

So the objective in functional medicine is to investigate symptoms to pinpoint one or more of these seven systems that are not working properly and then to change diet, exercise and lifestyle to fix the system imbalance and thereby the diseases and the symptoms.

The end result is often pretty low tech, and may seem underwhelming. That is, implement changes in diet, exercise and lifestyle to redirect expression of certain genes to cure a disease.

However, approach to getting there can be fairly high-tech in identifying the true root cause, identifying the systems that are out of balance and gene expressions that may be responsible for the underlying imbalance. And, as you see from the stories, results can be very profound and almost magical.

If you know someone, who is being treated for certain symptoms of chronic diseases by meds. e.g., high blood pressure, obesity, brain fog, constant fatigue, high cholesterol, inflammation, muscle aches, etc.. The meds being used often lead to side effects that need to be treated by other meds, which in turn are causing other side effects etc.. Such a person is the perfect candidates for functional medicine.

Have you heard of functional medicine?

Do you have any experience with functional medicine?

I have been looking for good certified functional medicine practitioners in our area that we could consult and also recommend to our friends and family. We have access to some lists, but no personal experience yet. Do you know of such a practitioner?

May be it is because I am turning 60 this year or may be it is something else… These are the questions I have been pondering lately:
• What is the object of this game of life?
• How do people die?
• How do people lose vitality?
• What would it take to have a life-span and a health-span of 120?
• How do I want to live the next 60 years of my life?
• How do I contribute at a level that is worthy of my life?
• How do I make a major contribution to preventative healthcare – the area that gets my juices flowing?

In finding answers to these questions, I have been reading whatever I can lay my hands on and talking to whoever would talk to me on this topic.

One of my recent thoughts has been to may be to find other kindred spirits – people who are searching for answers to these or similar questions – and may have even already found some answers!

Also, I am going to use this blog to reflect upon what I come across. Through these reflections I would like to share what I have learned and learn from others.

So, I would love to hear your comments:

Are you in pursuit of a goal to live to 120?

Do you wonder what it might take to purposely live a life of vigor to the age of 120?